I Could Make You Care
by wherenothinghappens
Summary: AU. What if Piper was never a naive college grad/debutante, but no stranger to drug trafficking? Two women who thrive on power meet and are doomed in a different way.
1. Chapter 1

Alex's first day of torture started with more torture. She had never instantly regretted her travel, but gasping for breath after leaving the airport and walking into what felt like a solid object—the object being mid-summer Hong Kong—was a very unique experience. She preferred winter visits to locations where words like 'tropical' were used to portray climate. The biggest deal of her career and she had already started to sweat. It wasn't encouraging.

It's a woman, Kubra had said. You're a woman. And then he'd given her a shit-eating look as if that sealed the deal. No, Alex knew how to talk to mules. If it wasn't her looks, it was the charm, the mystery, or the power: all of which she knew how and when to play. And she knew how to talk to men. There were always things they were willing to believe: that she was attracted to them, that she was less intelligent, that she was weaker. Her business was as much about the people as the numbers, and Alex was very good at it because she had no qualms about playing the game, as long as she came out on top.

She had never made a deal where her partner—as an independent signatory—was a woman. Even Kubra bought into that shit about women in a man's world, or otherwise she would be at home cracking that bottle of Casillero del Diablo and listening to Czech New Wave or some shit while Kubra sweated it out in a taxi. This woman—Piper—was a wild card, especially because Alex could uncover absolutely nil about her other than the fact that she was a daughter of a kingpin, a fact Kubra very cheerfully shared. Still, she wasn't about to fuck this one up.

She waved down a cab and rolled stickily onto the leather seats, shedding her blazer. The car dipped as the driver loaded her valise. In disjointed Cantonese she gave directions to an office building in Central District. Alex slumped against the window and took a breather.

The distinctive masts of the Bank of China Tower floated into view through the smog. The skyline was different but Hong Kong was just another free-wheeling capitalist playground. Just the way Alex liked it. The pre-deal adrenaline was flowing and air-conditioned cab was starting to feel downright chilly. A wave of muggy heat, a wave of cool air, and Alex was wheeling into one of the glass-curtained skyscrapers in Hong Kong's business district. She checked her phone and the business directory. 3603 appeared to be a company that manufactured medical devices. Unexpected, but not a half bad front for a Chinese triad.

She checked her make-up in the elevator and decided to shrug the blazer back on. Black was a good colour to hide sweat, and she would do the rest. The elevator dinged, and at the end of another hallway a middle-aged woman behind a desk gave Alex an expectant look.

"Alex Vause," she said.

The woman didn't look away. "Take a seat."

Alex sat down and looked around. She was not the only one waiting. Everything was painfully ordinary, clean, and subdued. A young man walked in wearing a suit and carrying a tray of breakfast orders. The secretary yawned and tapped on her keyboard.

Two voices were coming down a hallway shielded from Alex's view. One was masculine and demure. One was feminine and authoritative. They were speaking Cantonese too quickly for Alex to understand, but in another moment Alex saw that the woman behind the orders—oh, Alex knew what orders sounded like in any language—was blonde. Blonde and blue-eyed and young and small and dressed like a lawyer. She would have been the perfect mule in another life. But she had a presence in the room and a way of hooding her eyes that was either sultry or dismissive as she glanced around the waiting room and alighted on Alex.

"Alex Vause."

She had a perfect American accent. Television English, even. Was she talking to a mob boss's daughter or Miss America? Alex masked her confusion, smiled winningly, and stood.

"Piper?"

"Piper Chapman, for your purposes." The blonde reached out a hand and Alex shook it. "Come into my office."

Piper Chapman had a large, bright corner office. It was a little bare, and and little dusty. A Macbook was sitting on a massive desk besides a Starbucks drink that was piled high with whipped cream and what looked like chocolate chips and caramel swirl. Alex blinked. It was surreal.

The blonde closed the door, shut the blinds, and turned around. "I'm adopted."

"Uh, I," Alex smirked then tried to make it look contrite. "I didn't think I was being that obvious."

"You're not the obvious one. I am." The blonde shook out her hair and looked at the ceiling. "Sit down. I see you came straight from the airport. Would you like breakfast, a coffee?"

"A coffee would be great. Black, please."

The blonde opened the door again and stuck her head into the hallway. Alex took her little rolling suitcase and sat down. Piper moved to her massive leather office chair and looked silently at Alex, then at the young man that entered with Alex's coffee until he left.

"I'm a little offended Kubra didn't come himself."

"He's a busy man," Alex replied automatically, propping her glasses up on the top of her head.

"Too busy for business?" Piper raised an eyebrow. She looked thoroughly unimpressed. "Or is because he's a man, I'm a woman, and we're too different?"

"We could talk about being women in a man's world, if you need to," Alex offered with feigned earnestness.

Piper gave her a wry smile. "That would be very unnecessary."

"You could say," Alex added, holding flirtatious eye contact, "he doesn't get to talk to women that're on top too often."

The blonde laughed. "That's cute, but I'm not a mark. Don't flatter me. Let's not waste time."

"Let's not." Alex felt a tight, but genuine smile take over. She felt unbalanced, but not flustered. Sometimes games pretended not to be games, and those were the most fun. The thing about deals this high up the ladder was everyone had all the information before introductions were even made. It wasn't a deal she had to make so much as a performance she had to pull off. Social somersaults. Because logistics were easy, but people—they always clogged up the works.

Piper linked her fingers primly and leaned forward. "Last I heard most of your imports were coming from Mexico. Why the change of heart?"

"Gang wars. It's becoming too unreliable down there. The supply chain's in pieces-stolen shipments, dead contacts, meetings in fucking warehouses with guard details," Alex intoned. "A deal with one of them gets us in hot water with another. They're getting too territorial."

"I heard about the situation. Two years ago," the blonde relayed to her, straight-faced.

"Cutting our losses," Alex tilted one shoulder upwards. "We need security. You own the supply chain this side of the globe. Hell, at least a third of the opiates I see in the States come from you. But it's been bounced around a dozen middlemen who play pong with it in just as many cities before it even hits the streets. The money's rolling down the hill and I don't even know what's in the shit."

It was Piper's turn to shrug. "It's a tough market but I can play the long game. I'll still take an opportunity when I see one. Kubra speaks highly of you. You have a talent for importing, you need product, and I can get you that straight from the source."

Alex couldn't help herself. "So you were actually hoping I'd be the one to come today?"

"Is that the only thing you heard?"

Piper was glaring, but her eyes were dancing. Alex leaned back in her chair and tried not to look too smug.

"It's a sweet deal. Now what do you want?"

"You're going to show me how, where, and to whom you distribute. I want a clean show." The blonde's eyes narrowed and focused over Alex's shoulder, into a memory. "The last partner I had was a colossal fuck up. I was very disappointed."

"Well, is he still alive at least?"

The blonde took a sip of her drink and licked the foam from her upper lip. "You know, I was surprised you were a woman."

Alex hadn't really expected a straight answer, so she moved on quickly enough and not without some amusement. "We're really going to talk about this?"

"Men talk about women and we don't have an HR department."

So that's what she was curious about. Alex held the blonde's gaze and chortled. "Yeah, yeah, I strike fear into the hearts of men. Tall and breathes fire."

Piper eyed her thoughtfully. Alex stared back and thought maybe the blonde's curiosity in her could even be serious—and useful—but she wasn't about to play her cards this early. Chats weren't free.

"So, your distribution," Piper redirected finally.

"Transparency isn't exactly company policy, boss," Alex drawled, making sure to inflect the last syllable. "I don't sit around doing paperwork. How do you propose I show you how I do business?"

"I'm not your boss," Piper countered. "Just someone you want to impress. There's a shipment waiting for you, Alex, and I'm coming with it."

"You're going to babysit me?"

"That depends if you need it. I don't think you'll like my take on it." The delivery was a cross between flirting and threatening. Alex couldn't decide as Piper flashed her a thin smile. It was all business after that. Business as in being ushered out the door as Piper packed her things into a bright blue leather tote and threw on a pair of sunglasses like she was meeting someone for mid-morning mimosas. "5 AM tomorrow morning. We'll pick you up."

"Don't keep me waiting," Alex fired.

Piper stopped just before the main doors and smiled at Alex with stiff eyes. "You should take a tour of the Man Mo Temple in Sheung Wan. It's very relaxing this time of the year." With that, she rounded the corner and was out of sight.

There was no trace of Piper by the time Alex dragged her valise into lobby and out onto the street to hail another cab. On the way to Four Seasons, she considered looking up Piper's suggestion instead of braving an afternoon in the heat. Alex hadn't even brought the proper footwear.

She had a 5 AM car ride down to what was likely to be a warehouse full of heroin in the middle of fuck-knows to strut her shit, and she hadn't even eaten lunch today. All in a day's work. And Piper would be there. Probably with a prissy-ass Starbucks drink and that ball-crushing stare. She couldn't get a bead on the blonde at all. Piper had expressed interest without expressing need. Kept Alex on her toes without revealing anything too important. Only sometimes the woman's youth—and she was overwhelmingly young for what she was—broke through and Alex was tempted to say things that would work on anyone else. Alex would just have to get better.

Another contrast in temperatures later, Alex hit her hotel bed face down and groaned. Through the window the smog was starting to look opaque enough to touch. At least Piper was easy to look at, and Alex always shone under stress. Most of the time. She rolled over and looked around for her phone. First, she'd make Kubra sweat over the results of her meeting until she felt better. Then she'd hit the bar.

Alex hated dining alone, but drinking alone was just fine.


	2. Chapter 2

So that was how Piper Chapman ended up in Vancouver with an attractively bespectacled brunette and a mojito. Granted, it wasn't Cabo, the woman was a snake, she was mixing her own drink, but she had never really wanted the world. Ambition wasn't something she had in spades, but the will to survive—that was something else.

Back in the warehouse Alex had been visibly astonished by the sheer amount of paraphernalia. Using mules would have been like chipping away at stone with a pocket knife. Piper had enjoyed pulling one over the importer, and now she would measure for herself the woman's competence. Words, as she was learning, twisted in the wind when it came to Alex.

The brunette certainly wasn't slow on the uptake. Book us for Vancouver, she'd instructed. We're going to move all of it, and leave me alone until we're going. Clearly, Piper wasn't about to leave the importer to her own devices for too long, and in the same day she'd voluntarily folded herself into another cramped space with a stranger. A stranger who was cocky to a fault and wily to boot, but that was why Piper was here.

Their private jet dipped closer to the Canadian coast, which was only just beginning to appear as an arc of green against the ocean through the viewport. Piper could feel her spine tingle, an inexplicable feeling she had every time she landed in a different city. She had never lost the sensation altogether, even when she saw the inside of the jet more than the inside of her bedroom.

She tasted the drink with a straw and glanced furtively at the back of Alex's head. The importer was playing with a sprig of mint and fiddling with what looked like ten different spreadsheets on her laptop. If she was feeling a great deal of pressure to perform—something Piper could say she completely understood—there was no indication, and she seemed more likely to be bored to tears. They hadn't spoken much during the eleven-hour flight, with Alex looking no worse for wear as they neared the end of the flight. Piper noticed herself noticing and redirected her attention.

"I noticed your office looked a little dusty. So you're not the calculator puncher." The importer was looking intently over her shoulder as if she'd heard Piper's internal monologue, and spoke as if they had been all along.

Piper shook her head. "Someone else runs the numbers."

"So... you're the people person?" Alex persisted.

"I make sure everything's running smoothly and everyone's doing their job."

"So like... an enforcer?"

"I'm not the muscle. More like the velvet glove."

"Ah, upper management."

Piper put down her drink. "And you, Alex? Not enough managing?"

"I'm more like an independent contractor."

"So you think Kubra's going to let you off the hook when you ask nicely?"

"Well, no, but it sounds better than upper management." The brunette's impish look darkened. "It doesn't seem like you're free to retire once your bank account gets nice and fat either. Not that it isn't already."

"Don't deflect."

"Touchy subject?"

In lieu of answering, Piper took a long sip of her cocktail. So there it was. Something in common. A common struggle, even, if she wanted to be gratuitous. Yet there was nothing about Alex Vause that could make her soft. The woman loved her cons, if their first meeting had been any indication, all smiles and looks as if it were a game she was taking particular pleasure in savouring. Piper's life was full of Alex's type—her father called them honey traps. Cabo was looking better and better.

She retrieved her drink and moved down the aisle to gingerly perch herself across from Alex. The thing about grabbing a bull by the horns was that one couldn't let go. The brunette was chewing on the tip of a mint leaf and watching her closely.

"I can catch a hint if our destination's Vancouver, but I'd like to know how you're planning on getting all of it across the Pacific in one go."

"Who said it was in one go?" Alex shut her laptop and made a show of removing her glasses for a polish against her shirt. "I said I was going to move all of it, not that I was going to rent a boat and a few chumps with guns and hope for the best. Please."

"Explain the difference."

"Ye of little faith," Alex beamed. "We're having the show and tell you wanted, and that's why we're here. But that last leap is going to be one of faith and you're gonna have to suck it up at some point."

"No promises." Piper knew she was being short with the importer, but she wasn't about to roll out the welcome mat. She doubted hurt feelings would be an issue.

The pilot was now announcing their imminent landing. The sun was just setting over the coastal seaport and the view was spectacular. Piper buckled herself into the seat and glanced at the woman across from her again. Green eyes were watching her over the rim of a glass, and the importer didn't seem to particularly care that she had been caught or that her lingering broke social conventions.

Piper's instinctual urge was to look away. "Something on your mind?" She posed, as casually as she could manage.

The importer made a rolling gesture with her hand. "What happened to Larry?"

"What?"

"That's his name, isn't it? Your old partner. Guy was up and coming in the industry a couple years back. Dropped right off the map."

"That wasn't a threat on your life earlier, if that's what you're concerned about."

"You didn't answer my question."

"I didn't do anything to him." Piper was suddenly very aware of her body language. Her arms were crossed. "But I can tell you he liked taking samples and lying about it."

The importer made a sympathetic noise. "That's just rude. OD?"

"He's in prison."

The importer bobbed her head. "You cut him loose."

"A major shipment of ours was seized just off the coast seven miles from here. He didn't have the muscle to hold up his end of the deal."

Alex took it all in a stride. She was even smiling. "Did you forget to do your research?"

"He came highly recommended, just like you." Piper licked her lips and glanced out the window. They were about to hit the runway. She knocked back the rest of her drink. "Turned out he couldn't handle the pressure, and his coping mechanisms did the rest."

Piper felt very calm as she spoke, as if she were relaying the weather. Maybe she was disassociating. The incident had been quite an episode at the time. She'd been tasked with cleaning up the corridor to North America and it had ended up in flames. There had been professional and personal repercussions, several of which she was still mending, and none of which she would allow Alex even a notion about. Even more troubling was how the importer was listening as if she was being made privy to unusually juicy gossip. The sharks were circling.

"That must've been a shitshow."

Piper nodded, but didn't elaborate. "Circus-worthy."

The more she thought about it, the more she was resolved the brunette already knew too much. She barely noticed as the plane made a gentle landing and slowed gradually during their silence. Piper spent it trying to re-compartmentalize the memory, while in all likelihood, Alex was taking it apart in her head.

Alex nodded before she spoke again. She seemed perfectly content. "You hold up yours, I hold up mine. We'll be fine."

"It's a little too soon to start making guarantees." It snapped out of Piper's mouth before she thought on it. Something about Alex's supremely confident platitudes had the opposite effect.

The glasses were no longer a barrier between them. Alex was scrutinizing her unnervingly. "Are you planning on stabbing me in the back?"

"Not at all." Piper held up her hands, conciliatory. She could hardly expect the importer to believe anything she said. She had no designs on Alex, and the mere thought of what Alex could be up to gave her hives, but what could they do—pinky swear on their commitment? There had to be a purpose to the question, and Piper was once again uncomfortably mindful of her comportment. "We may be excellent assets to the right people, Alex, but we're not indispensable."

The importer didn't reply immediately. "Is that how you see yourself?"

So much familiarity in that sentence. Piper wondered if it was fabricated or if Alex truly felt as if she had the right to ask it. Or was she on the scent of something Piper had accidentally let slip? Piper schooled her expression and diverted away from herself.

"My partner took his time disabusing himself of his invincibility."

"And look where that got him." The importer let out a prolonged hum, stood up, and stretched. "I'm going to do something. Please don't be alarmed."

Piper was alarmed. She watched as the importer calmly reached up for her suitcase and unzipped it to retrieve a shoulder holster. She felt a chill go down her back.

"You brought a gun?"

Alex shrugged on a jacket and faced her very slowly, probably rethinking Piper's affiliations. "Mexican cartels aren't very happy when you break up with them. It's safety equipment. Your two personal beefcakes have been breathing my air the entire flight and you're angry I have a nine millimetre?"

Piper glanced back. One aforementioned bodyguard was in the cockpit. The other was standing and looking at them with his hand in his jacket. The odds were uneven for a reason. She knew too well there were worse things the importer could do to her than a shot in the back, and adjusted her tone for levity. "I leave you alone for afternoon and you bring a gun into Canada."

"It's the bears that do you in." Alex smiled broadly at her and rolled her suitcase down the aisle.

They disembarked to two dark sedans making long shadows on the quiet runway. Piper had the sort of feeling where she'd made a mistake and did not yet have the retrospective wisdom to ascertain what it had cost her. The feeling could also be attributable to jet lag.

Alex was checking her phone and frowning. "Here." The importer absentmindedly scribbled an address onto the back of a receipt dug out of her jacket. "I'd invite you now, but I gotta clear my browsing history. See you tomorrow?"

"5 AM?"

Now the brunette looked like a deer in headlights. She really did not seem to be a morning person. Piper laughed and felt eleven hours of tension begin to dissipate. "Just kidding. I'll come by when I damn well feel like it."

Alex was on the rebound. "I'll roll out the red carpet." She turned and headed for a sedan without asking which one was hers.

Piper climbed into the other car and slumped into the seat, Alex's note crinkling in her hand. There was barely enough light to read the address for a beachfront property, and the receipt for a very long list of drinks from a Four Seasons bar, dated two days ago. Either the brunette had a drinking habit, or she was coping.

First the gun, and now a slipup. Read too much into it, and Piper would be up all night.


	3. Chapter 3

When Alex first started colour-coding her spreadsheets and using multiple monitors, she'd taken a photo for good measure and sent it to her mother. It looked like college and her mother didn't need to know why. Truly, the luxurious life of a heroin importer. She hadn't even needed to make it look authentic. In the photo, there was a medium pizza that had been picked over on the desktop and she had been wearing stained sweats with unwashed hair. That had gotten her an ass chewing, but what was important was her mother would spend the rest of her days worry-free about whether or not she'd raised a screw-up.

She was thinking of her mother because her last text message to Alex had been from the hospital. Just shortness of breath, the subsequent text had assured her, because the Rangers were on a losing streak. Her mother was partial to understatement, and it had become another charming trait of Alex's.

So she could comfortably say this deal had unleashed a monster. It could have made a younger version of herself cry. Maybe. Spreadsheets over four monitors covered everything from cargo manifests, shift schedules, to arrival windows. Alex doubted even Kubra could pull this one off. The thought gave her fucking butterflies.

She was capping a whiteboard marker when the door clanged. The blonde had shown up with one of her muscleheads earlier and promptly departed again for coffee. Alex was pretty sure the musclehead had raided her fridge, but she wasn't about to be a shit disturber. Now Piper was probably judging her and Alex let the blonde look. She'd ditched the sweats years ago, but she still had eating habits of an eighteen-year-old. Among other things.

"Want a sour key?" Alex held out the package of candy she was currently grazing.

The blonde wrinkled her nose. "No, thank you." She was clutching some sort of fair-trade, organic concoction and dressed like she should be carrying a yoga mat.

"Suit yourself. Are you pulling some 'do as the Romans do' shit or are you into yoga-casual?"

"I lived here for a few years," the blonde admitted. "And most people like my yoga pants."

That did it. Alex allowed her eyes to slide downwards. They really were very nice. She looked back up. Piper sipped her coffee and raised her eyebrows. Something about the first part of Piper's statement niggled, but there were far more important matters.

The blonde was sounding significantly less frosty than she had been last night on the plane, and all cylinders firing this early in the morning? Alex could work with that. "That wasn't a complaint."

"Good." Piper joined Alex in the middle of the room where a map was unrolled on a table underneath a glass pane. The blonde squinted and set down her coffee to the side. "Have you been working all night?"

"I just have a hard-on for importing massive amounts of heroin." Alex tapped where she'd drawn circles on the glass. "I have staff on my payroll at these two container terminals. Dock workers. Truck drivers. Customs officers. All the palms are greased and the timing is perfect. The terminal operator just took on a huge contract. It's going to be chaos—freighters day and night. I'm going to stagger the cargo over four in the next week."

The blonde was looking at her strangely. She hoped she hadn't completely knocked it out of the park because she'd demonstrated a kernel of competence. Alex made an exaggerated motion for Piper to speak.

Hint taken. "One week? That's not standard practice. Don't you think it's safer to drag it out?"

"That's very managerial," Alex chuckled, then grew somber. "But this is our window of opportunity, too perfect not to take. Holding inventory costs you. Let me impress you, and you can keep the good vibes moving up the ladder. We both win."

"You've already planned out the week, haven't you?" Piper was now standing under the combined glare of Alex's four monitors. "That was fast. How much business do you do from this port?"

"A bit," Alex answered neutrally, knowing that wasn't what Piper wanted at all. She let the silence lengthen.

"Let me take a look at all this." Piper was already leaning into the monitors.

"Help yourself. Sorry my mouse is a little sticky."

A blonde head whipped around very quickly. Alex took a very large mouthful of espresso and focused on her phone. As she scrolled through her games, she thought she'd like to see how well a mobster's daughter synthesized that much information. Alex had never failed to want to murder nepotistic appointments in their sleep. Piper hadn't embarrassed herself so far, but she was so young and... white. Alex was ready to be dazzled.

"If you want my people to stick to your schedule it's all going to have to come out of the marine terminal we own. Those two reefers you have in there—that's a huge hassle."

Alex was nine minutes into a game of Scrabble. She hit pause and looked up. "I know, but customs never takes too long on refrigeration units. Cool cargo always has to be moving. That's going to be the bulk of the shipment. It'll be in and out of Vancouver in a day, and we'll meet it in New York."

"And the rest?"

"Mules. It'll move slower, but it'll get where the trucks don't go."

The blonde was starting to look impressed. Happy, even, but Alex wasn't about the rub that one in.

She sidled up and caught the scent of a dark floral. Interesting. "How am I doing so far?"

Piper looked steadily up at her. "Not bad at all."

"Glad you approve. Now I'll just have to convince my friends to come to your house."

"Our dock is a legitimate business. It'll check out and look perfectly clean on paper." The blonde slipped out of the space between her and the desk and retrieved her coffee. Now the glass-topped table was between them and it was starting to look like that screwball date Alex went on when she was fifteen where the other woman had also ended up across the room.

She'd pushed the boundaries a little too far that one time, and now borders were her bread and butter. Sometimes they kept things out, and sometimes they kept things in. How they operated on the blonde—she'd just have to figure that one out. She pushed up the bridge of her glasses and subdued herself.

"I'm sure it looks pretty, but we're re-routing multiple ships to a strange dock—I'm going to have to pull more strings."

The blonde leaned back. "You bought the worker ants but not the management?"

"I've never needed to with single shipments. A lot falls through the cracks, and the little guys have less to lose. If management is pocketing the incentive, you get rats."

"Fair enough. Tell me me what you're planning."

Now they were getting to the tasty part. "The same harbour masters at each terminal will be on shift when everything's underway." Alex flicked the keyboard and two faces appeared, her shorthand notes under them. She straightened and regarded the headshots with a sneer. "Caputo and Mendez. Mustachioed little creeps can't keep their noses clean."

"How much?"

"Oh, we're not going to buy them. You're still thinking small league." Alex let a deep smirk blossom. "We're going to destroy them and teach them to heel."

The woman almost choked on her coffee. "You really like your job, don't you?"

"Just hear me out. Caputo's a gambler. Mendez doesn't check ID before he whips it out."

Piper crept out from behind the table, drawn to the monitors once again. "So all of this is blackmail material?"

"Bingo. Life-ruining, lifetime-loyalty stuff. I prefer to be a bit more subtle, but we're on a tight schedule."

Piper offered up a blank look. "I'm not sure subtlety means what you think it means."

Surely that kind of attitude wasn't about to go unexamined. "Isn't it? I get you to do what I want," Alex pronounced slowly, leering at the blonde, "and you think it's what you wanted all along."

There wasn't an immediate response. The kid was probably reviewing every word they'd exchanged thus far. Alex pushed a hip against the side of the desk and watched with growing amusement. She was just too damn young sometimes.

"Honey traps," the blonde muttered.

"Excuse me?"

"You trap flies with honey."

"Exactly." Alex paused. Was that all the blonde had to say? She forged on. "Here's something I need your personal expertise with, partner."

"Yes?" Piper was eyeing her as distrustfully as the blonde could probably manage, but the slant to her lips said she was humouring Alex.

"Ass-kissing."

"You need help with that?"

Alex let the barb slide. "We're gonna be the the honey, tonight at an industry party. Nobody likes making deals in an office. They like when a drop-dead brunette—and a ravishing blonde, of course—hands them champagne, laughs at their jokes, and shows them a photo of them with the commissioner's underage daughter."

"I don't suppose you found that one on his instagram."

"I have my wily, wily ways. I supply the folks Caputo owes. It'll be a breeze."

Piper was reading Alex's notes, hunching over the desk just so her hair veiled her profile. "You've been working these men over a long time." Her voice was quiet.

"I do my homework." Alex eyed the blonde's back for an uncomfortable moment. "I'm going to have a limo pick you up tonight for our field trip. Look cute. It's at that hotel downtown all the high schools have their proms at."

Whatever was troubling the blonde passed. A corner of her mouth crooked up as she faced Alex. "I'll be here at nine. _You _look cute." With that Piper made her exit.

Alex was absolutely planning on it. In the blonde's absence, she terrorized a few contacts, liberated a black number with an indecently high slit along the right leg from the closet, and accomplished perfectly even winged eyeliner. She was blotting her lipstick in the limo when the crunch of gravel announced Piper's presence.

The door opened to a pleasant eyeful. The blonde was wearing a blindingly white floor-length gown, with cut-outs down to the hip on each side. The red lip accentuated every curve of her mouth as she thanked the driver. Alex followed the ripple of bare skin as the blonde angled herself into the limo.

"Look at you all cleaned up." Alex hiked an eyebrow at the woman and leaned over to pour her a glass of white.

Their hands brushed as Piper accepted it. "And you're looking impeccable yourself, Alex," she countered. "Do we have a cover story for why we're there?"

"Just say you've worked with Dan Strafford. I don't want to stay too long tonight—it's mostly men and they turn into wolves after midnight. We'll divide and conquer: you soften up Mendez, I clear the air with Caputo. Get Mendez alone and I'll come show him the goods." Alex slid closer to the blonde and passed over her phone, which was zoomed into a photo of the man in question with a hand up the skirt of the commissioner's daughter. It was impressively sharp for having been taken through the window of a moving cab.

"Very nice."

"Room key." Alex dangled the plastic card between two fingers.

"You're kidding." Piper glared at the offending object and set the phone down into the small space between them. "Really?"

"You aren't inviting him to a stall in the ladies' room."

The blonde still hadn't moved.

"You can tell me if you've never done this before." Alex gave her a lazy once-over.

"No, it's just—it's your mark and I'm—" Piper trailed off. Her initial anger had given way to something else.

Then it all clicked into place and Alex's innards roiled. She only now realized the woman had probably never needed to ply this particular trade. Piper was the daughter of a man powerful enough that any boy who got into her general vicinity probably heard the equivalent of a hundred shotguns cocking in his direction.

"Look, this isn't that sort of deal. You don't have to do anything you don't want to. He's not violent, just a sleazy fuck. Text me in the elevator and I'll be there before he even gets it up." She put a comforting hand on the blonde's knee without breaking eye contact. It landed a little higher than she intended.

Piper let out an audible breath and nodded. Conviction was replacing the apprehension in her posture. "I carry my weight. I'll get it done."

"Just flirt and play keep-away. Easy." Alex retracted her hand and crossed her legs. Out of the corner of her eye, blonde followed the motion. It was looking to be an auspicious night.

The event was well underway by the time they entered the lobby. A row of chandeliers lit the way to the ballroom. Alex had always taken particular pleasure in walking into a room and feeling all eyes on her—or them, in this particular case. They undeniably made a striking pair in black and white. She almost wished she was observing. And if Piper's expression was any indication, she was feeling the same rush. The blonde positively looked as if she owned the room and everyone in it.

She gestured Piper ahead of her, finding an unobstructed view by the stage. Nothing about the blonde hinted at performance anxiety. Mendez had already taken notice of her, and once Piper engaged him, his eyes never strayed. Kid was a natural.

Content, she identified her mark. "Caputo."

"Yeah?" The man faced her. Irritation, then intrigue washed over his features. Alex handed him the glass she'd already sipped from.

"Heard your blackjack needs some work."

"Who the fuck are you?"

"Alex Vause."

Caputo was turning a very impressive shade of red.

"You know me?"

He nodded tightly.

"Good."

The conversation began to follow a well-worn script. Her gaze strayed back to Piper. Mendez had an arm around the blonde's waist, and Piper was stroking his forearm as she spoke into his ear. Those were some ridiculous bedroom eyes. She turned reluctantly back to her mark before she could lose track, but something about the ease with which the blonde switched it on was fascinating.

"Do you understand what I'm asking you to do?"

"Completely."

"I'll send you the details tomorrow morning. You're going to read them, make all the arrangements you need to, and report back to me."

"How much time do I have?"

"Three days. I don't want any mistakes."

"There won't be any. I swear, I—"

Her purse vibrated. Caputo had the presence of mind to cork it as she became occupied with her phone. Piper's text only read:

- _Alex_

Alex looked back up. Caputo was standing like he had a full bladder.

"Keep an eye on those debts." She patted his arm consolingly and headed for the elevators.

As she waited, she shook out a few unexpected jitters. She was very, very curious about what was occurring in that hotel room. Ordinarily, she would be braced with the eye bleach, but Piper hadn't been half bad in the ballroom.

The card slid easily into the lock and Alex toed the door open. A single lamp illuminated the scene. Piper had been backed against the wall adjacent to the bed, and was getting very cozy with Mendez. The blonde was demonstrating a very neutral hand placement opposite pornstache's. Even with sub-par lighting Alex could recognize the man was a very poor kisser. There were some things the tongue just didn't do.

Mendez finally peeled himself away to acknowledge the interruption. He lit up when he saw Alex darkening their doorway. "Hey, it's your friend. Good call, baby."

Alex rolled her eyes and advanced on them. Piper retreated towards her, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Surprising herself with how forcefully she shoved Mendez into the bed, she moderated the trajectory of her phone into his chest if only to spare the device. It impacted dead centre with a fleshy thump, screen-side up.

"Take a look at this photo. Then we're going to talk."

Keeping Mendez in her periphery, she swivelled towards Piper. The blonde was reapplying her lipstick in front of the vanity with a distinctly put-on, but seamless indifference. A long, thorough look indicated nothing else out of place on her person.

"You didn't have to do... that," Alex murmured. It didn't quite qualify as kissing in her book. She mentally compiled a very long list of things she'd rather do than swap spit with Mendez.

"He wasn't a sparkling conversationalist."

"And that was better?"

"I underestimated him." Piper was looking nauseated. Alex didn't blame her. "I think I laid it on a little too thick."

"No kidding. You okay?"

"I need to cleanse my palate."

"Go have a drink," Alex said. "This won't take long."

Ten minutes later, Piper was watching them return from across the ballroom. Alex winked at her before giving the man accompanying her a pat on the ass. Mendez didn't look up from his studious inspection of the marble floor. Bad call. She was usually a bit more careful not to put them to the screws so badly they had trouble acting normal afterwards. Annoyed, she stopped and coached him briefly on the matter.

"Destroyed," she mouthed to the blonde, whose spirits appeared to be lifting. She went in search of champagne, just beginning to fantasize about Netflix, a pint of peanut butter chocolate fudge with marshmallows, her bed, and—damn it—she recognized an old face at the bar and barely escaped his field of vision. Instead she performed an about-face, detoured to Piper, removed the glass from the blonde's hand, finished it, and placed it on a nearby table.

Maybe that hadn't been the best way to preface her next request. "Dance with me."

"What?"

Alex stood very still and pointed where her torso obscured the motion from anyone behind her. "That jackass by the bar, don't look now, his name's Cesar Alanis. A couple years ago, I was really bored, and, well, if we don't pull a disappearing act right now, we might throw down."

The blonde grabbed Alex's wrist and yanked her through a wall of dancers, proceeding to lightly admonish her. "Next time 'he's my ex' would suffice. I'm not heartless."

"You think we... ?" Alex made an obscene gesture and guffawed. "God, no. I don't do boys. I just ruined his life. Dance with me." She draped a hand over the blonde's bare waist and pulled the woman into her. The blonde was looking a bit dazed. She squeezed Piper's hip gently.

"Do explain," the blonde insisted, her hand on Alex's shoulder tightening. They had fallen into a rhythm with what appeared to be zero effort.

"Okay, boss," Alex conceded brightly. "Cesar. Like selling oregano to a pothead. He didn't have a good eye for quality."

"Did you just admit to swindling a client?"

"You're talking to me about swindling? That's rich," Alex's laugh was loud and deep. "Arms trafficking, racketeering, extortion, murder... any of that ring bell?"

Piper had completely stiffened. "None of that comes across my desk."

"You're triad member, kid. You could be watering their flowers and you'd still have a target on your back." Alex leaned in, her voice reaching a lower register. Her breath ruffled the blonde's hair. "Plus, you just made a deal to ship a fuckload of heroin across the globe over coffee with me. That makes you real special."

She was propelled away from Piper with surprising fierceness. "Don't belittle me. I know what I am."

"Yeah, but it's such a waste you're the ethically tortured type."

The blonde didn't a crack a smile. "You chose this life. I didn't."

So Piper had done her research after all. Whatever the case, Alex did not like being caught unawares in the least—it made her prickly. "Them's the breaks. Sorry the well of pity is running a little dry. You make what you make of it."

"But you love it. It kills people and it gets you off. You've made it who you are."

Now Alex was regretting goading the blonde. That one had been especially pointy, but it was the abruptness of Piper's acerbity that gave Alex pause. "Jesus fuck, Piper, I'm not your enemy."

"I need a drink." Piper turned her back, confirming that Alex was definitely not invited.

It kills people. Alex knew it too well. But it was a free country, and she was hardly responsible for anyone else's shitty choices. If she made money off of them—even better. Piper had drawn the borders again, and they were a set Alex would not fuck with under normal circumstances. All the same, Alex loved a good story, and she already had the building blocks. Why quit while she was ahead?

She gathered herself and showed her face to a few more contacts. When the group she was standing with began discussing whether red cargo containers were like cars in terms of the statistical frequency with which authorities took notice of them, she excused herself and began searching for Piper. Hopefully the blonde was on her way to forgetting their tête-à-tête. She'd been a bit of an asshole, though that was old news. The conversations she'd been having tonight were giving her whiplash. As she parted the crowd—eavesdropping all the way, of course—something made her pause.

"What are the fucking Mexicans doing here?"

"Guess they got too good for landscaping."

Alex let out a quiet snort, but took in a closer sweep of the party. The demographic was not what it was typically, but it had not been unusual enough for her make note of. Now Cesar's presence was beginning to seriously rankle. He was a small-time dealer that had gotten even smaller-time after Alex had finished with him. The reason she had even sold him product that had been cut a million different ways was because he had the mental capacity of toddler. He didn't have what it took to import. If he was here, that meant he'd made new contacts, and those contacts were attracting racist sentiment.

She caught up to the man at the punch table. "You fucking snitch."

"Not so smug now, huh, bitch? Keep a lid on those big deals. Somebody might get jealous." Cesar's insults skirted harmlessly by. The dumb fuck may as well have invited her over for brunch and gone over what exactly he'd pulled.

"You know what happens to snitches," she snarled. "I'd watch my back."

The lengths a man would go to fuck back a woman who'd fucked him over. She didn't spare Cesar a backwards glance, cutting through a circle of monkey suits to make a beeline for the restroom. To her relief, it was empty and she texted the blonde with one hand, barely looking as she recovered her firearm from her purse.

_- Cum in restrm_

She'd never used that particular line in such a dire situation before, but she'd also never received a threat on her life while looking this good. It was a night of firsts. She only hoped Piper's sense of self-preservation would win over whichever sulky and possibly murderous thoughts the blonde was directing at her. Alex doubted 'I tried, sir' would go over well with a mob boss.

_- Now_

An increasingly morbid line of thought was interrupted when the door swished open to admit a stormy-faced Piper. Alex quickly rearranged her limbs when she realized Piper had been greeted with the business end of her weapon.

"Get in here. This isn't your welcome party."

Piper approached her tentatively. Her knuckles were white around her clutch. "What's happening?"

The blonde was flat out wide-eyed. Alex couldn't even enjoy it.

"We've been ratted out."


	4. Chapter 4

"What the fuck."

Piper punctuated every syllable, but it was relief that flooded into her tone. She'd thought the worst when she'd been looking down the end of Alex's gun, having expected some facetious excuse or another that Alex had presumably come up with to retrieve her from the party. More humiliated than irate after their altercation, she was curiously unbalanced on where she stood with the importer, and if Alex was willing to put everything aside, she wasn't about to mention it first.

The importer cocked her head, as if off put by her reaction. "I know. Cesar's getting me back. I'm sorry." Alex actually looked repentant, then arched her brows the way she did when she was about to put her own spin on a situation. "It's just one cartel this time around."

"Do you think I care whether I die by a hail of bullets or just one?"

"Okay, listen, it's just a little bit more involved than you know," Alex held up her non-gun-toting hand peaceably. "Normally they wouldn't fuck with you, but it's revenge, not business. When the cartels started fighting over the supply chain, Kubra played both sides. Then we spent the last two years just getting one of them off our back, by helping them fuck over the other one. Again."

Piper had no words. "You asshole."

"It was all Kubra's idea. I suggested retiring."

"And I'm sure Kubra made heavy use of your particular talents to sew up that one," Piper noted, sotto voce. They were same talents she was currently benefiting from, but she abstained from mentioning that particular fact.

The brunette pulled in one corner of her mouth. "What can I say?"

Piper let out a heavy sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose. Alex was looking apprehensively between her and the door. This was the first time anything had visibly gotten a rise out of the importer, but she was still cracking jokes. The woman was a damned safe.

The gun caught the light briefly and Piper pulled herself solidly into the present. "I know a thing or two about grudges. It's fine, I have a plan."

"Already?"

"Trust me."

Brushing off Alex's dubious expression, Piper moved for the door, about to crack it open when it was pushed in forcibly and without warning, driving her shoulder hard into the wall.

It was a man with a tattoo on his neck. The cast of his face shifted from boredom to recognition, then fear as Alex aimed her weapon.

"Get the fuck out." The importer's voice was steady. The man retreated and she turned to Piper, abandoning the facade. "Shit shit shit shit. The cavalry's next. We gotta go."

"Hang on." Piper counted ten seconds and checked the hallway again. It was blessedly empty. She pulled back and side-eyed the firearm. "Let's go, and put that away. You're not shooting anyone tonight if I can help it."

She led Alex on a path away from the ballroom, slinking through a door marked 'Employees Only'. At the late hour, it was deserted, but the service hallways winded like a labyrinth.

"Where are we going?" Alex's fingertips landed momentarily on the back of Piper's arm.

"The kitchen. The chefs have got to be gone by now, and there's always a door out the back."

"What if it's locked?"

"What if it is?"

"This might surprise you, but I lack the lower body strength to kick down an industrial door."

"Then find consolation in the fact that I'm a little more creative than you are."

Alex was looking cranky, but something about sneaking around galvanized Piper. It took her back to a time when she was significantly less felonious and knew relatively little responsibility. There was also nothing like a field sobriety test that included a Mexican cartel out for her blood.

The kitchen door was indeed secured, with an electronic and fortunately, separate manual lock. Piper produced a set of lockpicks from her clutch, hands shaking in anticipation. Alex let out a long, low whistle and turned to watch the hallway.

The drumming of Piper's heart nearly drowned out the sound of the lock, and the fine work was far from muscle memory, her mind sluggishly recalling how much torque to apply and how to set the pins. In the distance, a door opened and came the sound of a footfall. It had only just registered with Piper when Alex reached back blindly, a hand landing on Piper's side as the other reached into her purse.

Piper cursed softly in Cantonese. Had it been seconds or minutes? Finally, the handle depressed and Alex hustled her through into pitch black. The next thing Piper knew was a rapid drop in temperature.

Alex had tugged her into the cold room. It seemed there had just been a massive delivery, because cardboard cartons claimed what little available space there was, and the brunette was pressing into her with barely a breath between them. Footsteps came past them and the back door opened, rendering Alex's very close, very tense face briefly visible in the flood of ambient light.

"Don't worry, it was a server. Smoke break, I think, but we gotta wait till he gets back."

The prospect of bodily injury hadn't crossed Piper's mind. She was appreciating the earthy and pleasantly spicy tones of the Alex's perfume, and the heat of her body in the overly conditioned room. Then the brunette breathed on her cheek and she was instantly rocketed back to sensation of Mendez's body and his revolting panting. She repressed a shudder.

"Fuckin' Mendez," Alex muttered, noticing—of course she would notice. "You aren't ruined forever, are you?"

"Not that I know of."

But the way Alex had pitched it—Piper hadn't even thought anything of it at the time—had that been what Alex meant when she'd bend Piper to her wishes while Piper believed she'd done it all willingly? The span of one evening and she was already losing track of the number of victims to Alex's deception. On the other hand, the woman had been unnecessarily fierce with Mendez, and the way she'd behaved towards Piper in the hotel room—

"Did you case the place before we got here?"

Relieved to be distracted from her thoughts, Piper pressed futilely closer to shelves at her back. "I looked at the floor plan beside the fire extinguisher. I have a very good memory."

"Handy." Alex dipped her head contemplatively. "Sorry I come with so much baggage."

"Is that what you're calling it?" Piper teased, and the brunette looked up, a small smile returning to her lips. "I was expecting trouble. Either way, I'm pushing someone else out. This is just a little more James Bond than I prefer."

"Just when I had you pegged," Alex smirked. It was almost beginning to feel stuffy. A door slammed nearby, wafting in cigarette smoke. The importer eased off Piper to get a better view. "We're up."

They spilled out onto a quiet residential street overlooking the harbour. The single red cherry of a finished cigarette was dying on the asphalt. Piper rotated her neck, attempting to dislodge the past five minutes.

"That was refreshing," Alex commented, oblivious. "Don't we need a getaway vehicle?"

"Yes." Piper came to and looked down the street, searching.

"Aren't you going to call your bodyguards?"

"I don't know where they are. We can't afford to wait around." She spotted an older model Nissan and started walking towards it. "You said this would be a field trip."

A pair of heels clicked after her. "Never believe anything I say."

"I don't. Come here and be my lookout. Hold my bag."

The brunette took it wordlessly, looking no less than stunned as she kept apace with Piper. With a grin, Piper whipped a slim jim out of the pouch.

Alex's reaction was immediate. "Holy shit."

"I didn't just start out giving orders," Piper explained. "Stand here." She pointed to the area behind her, then slipped the tool between the window and the frame.

Alex shielded her with her body. "But in your clutch?"

"Preparation is key." The door unlocked with a satisfying tick. Piper climbed in and reached over to unlatch the passenger's door. "Get in. There's a light in the bag."

There was a child's seat in the back of the car, a dark but identifiable shape. Piper stared at it, petrified, until cold gust of air announced Alex's appearance on the passenger's seat. She sounded a little breathless, but gamely pointed Piper's penlight at the driver's side. The clutch yielded a multi-tool, and Piper unscrewed the cover on the steering column, going through the paces of hot wiring a car.

"Aren't you Mary fucking Poppins. What else have you got in there?" Alex was pressed flat against the back of the seat with a hand in her hair.

"Snacks. Are you hungry?"

Alex laughed in disbelief. "Are you serious?"

Piper tossed the leather accessory back into Alex's lap and stripped a wire. "Give it to me straight: is there an entire cartel out for us?"

"No. They're too busy trying revive the business back home after what Kubra and I did to them. Poppy farmers to extort and shit. They aren't about to send an army." Alex pulled out a granola bar and tore the wrapper with her teeth. "Want some?"

"Keep it. We're not going anywhere until we know what your rat knows."

"Shit. I was hoping to knock a few heads, make sure everyone's on the same page. I'm not really the conference call type."

"We might have time." Piper leaned back, dusted off her hands, and started the car. "Who does Cesar know?"

"I don't make powerful enemies. Cesar didn't exactly make a lot of friends selling oregano. He's been pushed out. No one's talking to him... unless there's a leak on your side."

"That's impossi—" Piper's denial died on her lips when a face—formerly consigned to oblivion—reappeared at the forefront of her mind. "Fuck."

"Fuck," Alex echoed. "What'd you do them?"

"It's not like that." Piper skidded through a clumsy turn, thoughts torn between past and present. "Alright, like I said, I used live here. The triad has a crew of ex-pats here. We have a safe houses."

"Doesn't the rat know about those?"

"You'd have to be pretty high up to know about this one."

"You're one of those?"

"Stop."

"Fine. Who's the rat?" The brunette had latched on, like a pitbull.

Piper bit the inside of her mouth. "I excommunicated someone a long time ago. He's still around dealing, but I never thought he'd snitch. But now it all makes sense."

"Wait, you don't kill them?"

"We're not a bunch of brutes, okay?"

"You're not a brute. At all."

Piper glanced away from the road. The importer's face was mostly in shadow, but the look of desire was unmistakeable. Her own body's response was immediate. She squeezed the steering wheel until it squeaked.

"I'm sorry about earlier," fell out of her mouth, without the requisite forethought. "I was definitely being uncivilized then."

Alex was looking at her like she knew. "I'm an asshole," the brunette relented. "It's not like I've drawn you different picture. Tell you what—I'll call it even if you tell me what you've got on me."

"Just the paper trail," Piper started, recalling the facts. "You grew up with a single mother in South Bronx. Kubra was dealing to your father when you found him. You moved to the Upper East Side shortly after. The rest is history, I suspect."

She also knew Alex's deadbeat of a father figure in question had made a passing appearance in the tabloids as dead from heroin overdose, around the same time Alex's mother settled into a nice little townhouse in Tribeca. There was nothing to really say about it between strangers—or whatever they were—and broaching the topic of family was something Piper was very unwilling to do.

The importer exhaled gustily. "You could write my obituary."

"With any luck, it won't come to that."

"Retirement's looking pretty good right about now, huh?"

"No kidding."

"So." Alex adopted a casual pose with an elbow propped against the car door. "What would you do? Cancun with topless men serving you cosmos? Peace corps?"

Piper stared off into the road. "I honestly don't know."

"They say if you aren't planning the future, you've given up."

"Well, Alex, if you were to take away anything at all from the night we just had," Piper bit back, the preachy 'among-other-things' going unspoken, "the life expectancy in our line of work isn't remarkable."

"Or you could choke to death on your non-fat quinoa bagel tomorrow. It's a toss-up."

"You're just a well of optimism."

"Even heroin importers have dreams."

"And what might those be?"

"That's awfully personal."

Piper breathed deeply, opened her mouth, and twisted toward Alex to give her a piece of her mind. The importer had been dogging her with questions all night and would still throw something so paltry her way. But something made her hold her tongue—the way Alex's eyes were alight with playful anticipation, possibly—or that she was unsure if she was more afraid to find that there was something of substance underneath the levity, or that there was nothing.

Alex remained oddly quiet after Piper declined to respond. Exhaustion had set in by the time she parked the Nissan in an alleyway just off Main Street. The car would have to be disposed of. Piper texted her guards as they emerged onto the street and were waylaid by the night's rowdy last call crowd. Amid catcalls and lewd comments, Alex wordlessly grabbed her wrist and shouldered through the crowd. Piper suspected the look on the importer's face precluded any retaliation.

The safe house was a small, unassuming bachelor flat situated above a shawarma joint. Despite its unkempt exterior, the inside was snugly domestic, inlaid with warm, recessed lighting and patterned textiles. On the fridge, a small red square of Chinese calligraphy was affixed with a magnet. Piper contemplated its promise of good luck with some scepticism.

From where she poured herself a glass of water, she could see through to the den, where Alex was sprawled on the futon with a forearm over her eyes. It was as if someone had cut the puppeteer's strings for the night. She wondered if the brunette tired of the constant, but ultimately vacuous stream of banter.

Flirt and play keep-away. It seemed to her Alex knew nothing else.

"I need to make some calls," Piper said, standing at the entryway of the kitchen, mind already swirling with what had to be done. "Track down my rat, get in touch with..."

"Your shoulder."

"What?" Piper started and craned her neck. The earlier impact in the washroom was beginning to produce a heavily saturated starburst of blue and purple. It was then the adrenaline receded and she also began to notice the throb of her feet, the cramp in her neck, the nicks on her hands where she'd fumbled with the tools in her haste...

"Let me." Alex got up and went into the kitchen, directing Piper towards the couch with a prod as she passed.

Seated, Piper could hear the fridge's ice dispenser running, and the importer rummaging in the cupboards. On the coffee table, their possessions lay in a meagre pile. Alex's purse was still unzipped.

The brunette returned hefting a ziploc of ice wrapped in a dishtowel. Instead of offering it, she sat down, put a cool hand in the crook of Piper's elbow, and applied it gently.

"Thank you," Piper offered, for lack of anything else coming to mind.

"I'll find Cesar. I'm not sure what I'll do to him, but I'll find that bastard."

"What you'll do to him? Don't tell me the gun is for show."

"I kick ass at the range but I haven't graduated to live targets yet, okay?" The importer admitted, some unexpected sheepishness leaking through. "What about your rat?"

Piper hesitated, dredging up a different version of herself. There was nothing else left to her, and what had to be done could not be ill-conceived. "We can't let them stay. If it makes you feel any better, it won't be your finger pulling the trigger. But the whole point of a grudge is that it's illogical. They won't stop until they ruin us, or worse."

Alex delayed, the bag of ice crinkling. "Self-defense, right?"

Piper felt her mouth turn up, but her skin crawled uncomfortably. "Isn't it always?"

The brunette let it sink in. She wasn't smirking down at Piper for once. "You're more than what I thought you were."

"Look the way I do in my world, Alex, you get very good at surviving."

They exchanged wan smiles and Piper brought up the image of Alex holding her clutch with no small amount of satisfaction. In a roundabout way, Alex really did how to flatter a woman.


End file.
